Thursday, October 17, 2013

All the Colors

In
Threadville, you will find, as you might expect, lots and lots of thread. In my
machine embroidery boutique, In Stitches, I sell embroidery thread. Across the
street, my best friend, Haylee, sells sewing thread in her fabric shop, The
Stash. Down the street at Batty About Quilts, Naomi, who is one of Haylee’s
mothers (she has three, all of whom have more or less adopted me—does that mean
I have four mothers?) sells all the thread you might need for piecing a quilt
or sewing the top to the bottom, with batting between. Other Threadville shops specialize
in yarn, notions, and home décor.

People
come to Threadville from miles around to shop and learn.

But
we have a problem. No, not only the murders that you may have heard about and that
I’d just as soon not talk about, but…um…I hate to say it. Some of us may be collecting just a little too much.

Knitters
and crocheters always need more yarn, while quilters and seamsters (to prevent
confusion, I shy away from the word “sewers”) need more fabrics. The buttons we
have on hand because we bought several kinds for the previous project (because
we couldn’t make up our minds in the store) never work for this one.

And
then there’s my downfall, embroidery thread. As any machine embroiderer knows,
we often do not have all the right colors for our next project, and we need new
colors, usually several.

I
like turning photos into embroidery designs. I manipulate the artwork to limit
the number of thread changes, but still, working from a natural palette means I
need many subtle variations in hue.

I
keep adding new colors and types of embroidery thread, and I’ve ordered taller
racks to hold the thread. But somehow, I don’t think I’ll ever have enough.

I’m
not complaining…

How
about you? Do you have a favorite craft that requires keeping more on hand than
you’ll use next week? And all you foodies out there, you’re not immune—what’s
in your spice rack?

You can read about how Willow solves a murder in the latest Threadville Mystery, THREAD AND BURIED, available from these booksellers. Read the first chapter here.

Janet Bolin’s first Threadville Mystery, DIRE THREADS, was nominated for both an Agatha Award for Best First novel and for the 2012 Bony Blithe Award. The second in the series, THREADED FOR TROUBLE, was nominated for the 2013 Bony Blithe Award.

Visit Janet at facebook and twitter.
And keep your eyes open for information about the fourth Threadville Mystery, coming in June, 2014.

1 comment:

Lovely post. My one major hobby is reading, and I never have enough books. And I will never run out of books as I buy 3 for every 1 I read. So yes, my TBR is ginormous but I still need new books every week.

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